Two Years for This? Football Manager 26 Lands as Steam’s 7th Worst-Rated Game Amid Bugs, Clunky UI, and Missing Features

If you are having a rough week on the touchline, take heart: Football Manager 26 is catching far more heat than you are.

The launch nobody wanted

Sports Interactive and Sega dropped Football Manager 26 on November 4 after a short beta for people who preordered, and the PC crowd is not feeling it. On Steam, the game is sitting at a Mostly Negative rating with over 2,100 reviews, and a lot of them say the same thing: this one shipped in bad shape.

'Setting aside the obvious (but aggravating) bugs and other technical issues, as they will most likely be addressed in updates and hotfixes, I think FM 26 simply wasn’t ambitious enough in the right places.'

That is the top review on Steam, and it pretty much sets the tone. Others describe it as a massive letdown, stacked with glitches, and the weakest entry they have played in decades with the series. The criticism keeps circling the same trio: bugs, a clunky UI, and features that used to be there in older games but are now missing. Some players do like the improved tactical control and the way matches play out, but that praise is getting drowned out by everything else.

How rough are we talking?

• Steam reception: Mostly Negative, 2,100+ reviews.
• Right now it is the seventh-worst-rated game across all of Steam. Hitting that list within 24 hours of launch is brutal.
• The rollout followed a limited beta period for preorder players.
• This is the first Football Manager built on the Unity engine.
• It lands after a two-year gap, because FM25 was canceled.
• Fans say the biggest issues are bugs, a poor UI, and legacy features that did not make the cut this time.
• There is some praise for tactical tools and match presentation, but it is not moving the needle.

Why this one stings more

Skipping a year raises expectations all by itself. Switching engines raises them again. FM26 had both: a two-year break after FM25 was canceled and a rebuild on Unity. That is the sort of behind-the-scenes change that can be exciting, but it also means you are rebuilding systems players take for granted. Clearly, the handoff was not smooth enough to keep the diehards happy.

What the devs are saying

So far, Sports Interactive has not commented. If they want to turn this around, it is going to take more than a couple of hotfixes. This looks like a multi-patch situation to fix stability, address UI pain points, and restore the series staples fans expected on day one.